Louis White Picks Right Up Where He Left Off In 2014

Robersonville, NC – The Rumble in Robersonvile, Opening Night: Round 2, Saturday Night Short Track Racing, which ever name you pick, it sure was good to be back at the track with no rain in sight! Two weeks ago Mother Nature had to stick her ugly nose into the mix and cancel opening night, but maybe it was a sign, a way for more drivers to prepare their cars for battle. This time around however, only a 5% chance rain in the forecast all day, we were going racing!

The tale of the tape – figure that was fitting with the historic fight taking place as well – 14 (15 LMSC registered, one had to back out after practice due to medical reasons) would suit up and get into the high-banked ring that is known as East Carolina Motor Speedway! With $2,000 on the line for the winner it was pretty clear pretty early that we were going to have one hell of a race on our hands.

Two practice sessions were given to each division throughout the afternoon and finding his way to the top of that leader both times was the driver of the #7 H&L Logging machine, Louis White. However he did have some company, making just her second start at ECMS, 2014 Southern National LLM Champ Haley Moody was a able to wheel her machine to second, both times!

Those speeds seemed to transfer over to qualifying for the young lady as she held the pole position for some time. She was only “bested” by one other driver and that was ECMS veteran Thomas Burbage. Clicking off a time of 15.321 or 88.114 MPH, Burbage earned the right to call himself the pole sitter for the 100-lap feature later that evening. Things almost went south quickly, when crewmembers were jacking the car up after qualifying they noticed a decent size gash in the right rear tire. They flagged down an official who eventually gave them permission to make a tire change and still be able to keep is pole position.

Once it was time to drop the green flag, Burbage off to a great start with the entire field falling in behind him. Certainly did not take long for the field to get single file, the top six tucked into a nice Single, Straight… not so Silent line! To be expected honestly with 100 laps on tap for the night, no since in burning your stuff up so early in the race. Only real issue we had early was a very, and I mean very loose Haley Moody off of turn four! She would get shuffled back to about the eighth or ninth spot. She would eventually end up making three pit stops for the team to work on the car. We were able to catch up with Haley after the race – “Tires just didn’t measure up right,” said a bummed out Haley Moody. Lucky for her caution laps did not count tonight so she was able to come down pit road multiple times to make adjustments. She would eventually battle her way back to a sixth place finish.

Taking a look back at the conga line of racecars it was very surprising but awesome to see the top five stay grouped up as long as they did. Drivers sizing each other, taking peaks down low and even putting a little bumper to each other. All in all just some great, homegrown, short track racing! Wasn’t till lap 35 that we saw the first of three cautions on the evening. Gary Young, Jr was the tracks first victim, didn’t quite see what happened to cause it, but when we turned our heads to four he was resting against the outside retaining wall. We would only have two other cautions through out the night for the spinning #08 of Joe Shannon, did a great job of keeping the car down and not hitting anything.

On the restart McCaskill was able to get an incredible jump and muscle his way around the #7 of White to hold onto the second spot for a while. We would eventually be placed on our second caution, bunching the field up, allowing any driver a crack at the lead. On the ensuing restart Bradley got a great jump, matter of fact he was door to door with Burbage for a about a lap and a half before he washed way up the track. Speaking with him after the race he thinks there was a mechanical issue. “I think that’s when we started having some break issues to be honest,” McCaskill told The Weekly Racer post race. “My spotter was telling me the rotors were getting really red and the car was just having trouble rotating from then on.”

McCaskill would inevitably fall back as far as tenth in the field. With the help of a never give up attitude, some hard driving and a semi late race caution McCaskill was able to rally back to a second place finish on the evening.

Louis would eventually take the lead over from Thomas Burbage on lap 56 and left the door wide open for 2014 LMSC champ Jeff Shiflett to sneak on by as well. We had our moments up front where it looked like we might have a battle for the lead but from about lap sixty-five on, no one had anything to bring to the table for White. Looking back a little deeper in the field you had McCaskill working his way back up to what would be a second place finish.

The best battle on the track there towards the end was for the fifth spot. Daniels, Mercer, McNair and at one point even Moody was back in the game trying to claw her way back into the top five where she started. Mercer was able to work his #24 around the machine of Daniels to grab the fifth spot on lap 87. Daniels would put the bumper to him the next lap but it was enough to move him, Mercer would finish the race right where he started – P5.

After the race we caught up with Louis in victory lane to talk about his run. White told us that he was a little concerned at the start of the race on how low his crew set the tire pressures but he trusted them they knew what was best. We asked Louis now with the first race and first win under his belt what could we see of the #7 in the future, he told us they would just take the races as they come. “We are going to come out here as much as we can,” said White. “My daughter is suppose to be having her baby here in the next few weeks so we are going to be there for that and see where it goes from there.”